


Iridescent

by galaxystiel



Series: Writers of Destiel Bingo [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Art Student Castiel (Supernatural), Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Neurological Disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22224883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxystiel/pseuds/galaxystiel
Summary: Castiel experiences life through colours.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Writers of Destiel Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599766
Comments: 21
Kudos: 183
Collections: Writers of Destiel Writer's Choice Bingo





	Iridescent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Writers of Destiel 'Writer's Choice' Bingo, for the prompt, "Watercolour".
> 
> Thank you to [Jenny](https://envydean.tumblr.com) for being a fantastic beta and brainstorming with me when I was struggling.

Castiel experienced life through colours.

It was somewhat different to synesthesia, where colours could be associated with people or objects. No, there was a certain amount of detached empathy in Castiel’s world spectrum. The letter ‘S’ didn’t come with an association of navy blue, nor any other colour for that matter. The colours were emotions.

But not his own.

People actively changed colour depending on their primary emotion. Castiel could walk down the street and see a woman change from a vivid cerulean to a muted tangerine and back again as she passed by a particularly persistent panhandler, or a man whose entire silhouette lit up golden yellow when he received a call from his fiancee. The colours were everywhere, often as fleeting as the emotions they represented, and Castiel was enthralled by it all.

It was beautiful and fascinating, and no two colours were ever the same at any time. He supposed it all came down to the experience of the individual, how heightened they felt that particular emotion and what was causing it. It had taken him a long time to understand that there were people behind the colours, identities that could not be summed up by the level of wrath or excitement they were feeling that day. If he focused hard enough, he could tune out the colours and focus on the face behind them. But not completely. There was always a tinge that betrayed what the person in question was feeling.

Green was grief. Grief manifested itself in the most varied shades, Castiel had noticed. Depending on the level of pain or anger, grief could appear from a pastel mint green to an eye-straining lime. It also tinged other colours. People who experienced a huge loss always had their colours tinged slightly green. Even when they were happy, their sunflower hues never managed to shrug off the tinge of sage.

Castiel tried not to understand the colours. He’d tried to explain it to countless doctors, numerous therapists, but nobody had ever been able to give him an explanation. Which, in Castiel’s eyes, made it a thing of beauty. Beauty was inexplicable, just like colours. Just like art.

Even now, in his early twenties, the colours were still new and exciting to him. The walls of his crappy studio apartment were all decorated with blocks of colour, each new shade that he encountered found a place on his wall, after hours of attempting to recreate that shade until it was perfect. Just like he was right now, he often spent hours out in the quad, filling in what amounted to an abstract mosaic with his watercolours. Castiel mixed and diluted until the colour matched exactly what he could see, and only then was it added to his sketchbook.

A disturbance in the form of someone joining him on the grass threatened to tug his attention away from a particularly sienna-looking professor who had just been bowled over by two students on hoverboards. When the kiss was pressed to his cheek, Castiel softened and eventually looked over at his boyfriend.

Dean didn’t mind the colours. Didn’t think it was weird that Castiel’s gaze was drawn to everyone they passed, mesmerised by strangers at inopportune moments. In fact, he almost seemed to find it _endearing_ , as crazy as that was. But Castiel often came out of his reverie, three new colours in his sketchbook, to find Dean smiling at him.

It never failed to create a rush of emotion that rivalled even the brightest of yellows.

A freshman student to Castiel’s junior, Dean was actually the same age as Castiel. He’d started late, due to the loss of his parents forcing him to abandon his dreams of college in favour of raising his younger brother. A scholarship had put Dean’s dreams back on track now Sam was applying for colleges himself.

On Dean’s first day, he’d walked into the administration building almost neon yellow with happiness. Castiel had followed him, brazenly trying to mix the shade until Dean had noticed him. The resulting explanation had seen Dean staring at Castiel, thoughtfully.

 _Sounds like you should buy me dinner first_ , he’d said.

 _Okay_ , Castiel had replied when his tongue had remembered how to speak.

The rest was history.

As Castiel turned to face his boyfriend, the greeting he was forming died on his lips and he found himself reaching for his sketchbook.

“What colour is that?” Castiel demanded. “What are you feeling right now?”

Dean was the most beautiful shade of pink he’d ever seen. Not as dark as cerise or as bright as magenta or as pastel as candy floss. But somewhere in the middle and all three and it was breathtaking. But even amidst the new colour, Castiel could see the edges of Dean’s silhouette tinged with spring green.

“Why don’t you guess?” Dean asked, his tone light and teasing.

“Well, it’s not happiness… because happiness is yellow. Contentment? No, that's wrong… amusement?”

“No,” Dean smiled. “Try again.”

Castiel tried to reconcile the colour with shades of pink he’d seen before, and shook his head. It didn’t make sense. He'd seen couples with varying hues and tones of pink and red but never something this vivid.

“I feel love,” Dean said simply.

“I’ve seen love,” Castiel objected. “It’s usually pink or pale red. It’s never been… that colour. That shade. That brightness.”

Dean just shrugged, almost as if he was waiting for Castiel to catch up. Which he did, a few seconds later.

“Wait, why do you feel love?” He asked, head tilting to the side in curiosity and with a glimmer of hope. They hadn't really expressed how serious this relationship was yet, but Castiel had fallen hard and fast from their very first date.

A matching glimmer of hope in Dean’s eyes showed him he was on the right track, but the smile tugging at Dean’s lips implied that wasn’t the right question he should be asking.

“Why is the love I see on your face different from every version of love I’ve seen before?”

Dean laughed, shaking his head as his hands came up to cradle Castiel’s face, thumbs sweeping over his cheekbone with a gentleness that Castiel had come to know and adore. “Because this one is for you.”

Castiel surged forward and kissed him, fervently and with his whole heart. With carefree hearts they tumbled down into the grass together, laughing and kissing. “I love you too,” he whispered against Dean’s lips.

The sketchbook was pushed aside and forgotten, and for the first time in Castiel’s life, the spectrum around him passed by unheeded in favour of a colour that was all his own.

**Author's Note:**

> [MY TUMBLR](https://galaxystiel.tumblr.com)


End file.
